


a world where roses bloom - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

by Anonymous



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types, La Belle et la Bête | Beauty and the Beast (Fairy Tale)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28368828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In one universe, when Belle tells the Beast she loves him, the Enchantress sets things right. In this universe, however, there’s nothing stating the Beast had to be alive for the deal to have been completed. He loved Belle, and Belle loved him. That was enough.Or: what Belle does, when Adam never comes back to life. Belle/Enchantress angst with a smattering of fluff.
Relationships: Adam/Belle (Disney), Beast/Belle (Disney), Belle/Agathe, Belle/Enchantress (Disney)
Kudos: 3
Collections: Anonymous





	a world where roses bloom - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

_In one universe, when Belle tells the Beast she loves him, the Enchantress sets things right. The servants and the workers go back to being human, the Beast turns into Adam, and the castle turns into something worthy of being called a home. This last point is not meant in terms of power or prices, but in the light that can push through the windows again and set the halls ablaze. The gates reopen._

_In this universe, Belle tells the Beast she loves him, and the Enchantress does what she can. Lumiere and Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts and Chip and the rest, they all go back to being human. The people of the surrounding villages remember their Prince, and light floods the hallways._

_In this universe, however, there’s nothing stating the Beast had to be alive for the deal to have been completed. He loved Belle, and Belle loved him. That was enough._

#

She still spends a few minutes waiting for the magic to finish. Even after the Enchantress apologizes, leaving empty-handed and alone, Belle waits over the Beast’s form for a sign. She holds his massive paw, stroking each wicked claw gently and combing her fingers through his shaggy fur.

The tears eventually stop coming. Belle is her father’s daughter, and Maurice fixed things. Even when she had been little, and she had fallen over and come home limping with torn knees, he hadn’t let her cry without reason. Perhaps it was another way of protecting her, but it meant that, as much as she wanted to, after a few minutes she sat next to the body dry-eyed.

One shaky breath, then another. She drapes her body over his and kisses each eyelid shut, as gently as she can. A quick jerk along her skirt hem gives her enough fabric to cover his face. The massive crowd at the base of the castle can be seen from their tower, so she swallows hard and turns around.

Walking down the staircase and leaving his body behind is harder than any other time. Something flits through her mind— _I’d learn how to fly, just to never have stairs in this place._ She pushes the thought away instead. Flying is for witches and cruel Enchantresses, and this isn’t her place anymore. It had been her home for a few blissful moments, and that would have to be enough.

Everyone has rushed outside of the castle, desperate for the sun and for their family. She takes her time, walking through the main halls. Her hand sweeps over bannisters, wishing each part goodbye.

It’s hard not to flinch, when she finally walks through the doors. For all her elegance, it’s Plumette that notices her first, dark skin radiant in the rising sun. But it’s harder when Lumiere looks at the empty spot next to her, when Mrs. Potts gets it and claps her hands over her mouth. It’s hardest when Chip doesn’t get it at all.

Belle stares at the ground and does not cry.

#

“He left it to you.”

It’s the first thing Cogsworth says. It’s also the first thing she responds to, after the villagers swarm around her and she breaks, screaming at them for their ignorance and hatred. She knows, or some part of her knows, that it really isn’t the villagers that caused the Bea—caused _Adam_ to die. He loved her. She can say his name.

“What?” Her voice is hoarse. It had broken mid-scream, when the villagers had refused to leave the grounds and the newly-human guards had all but forced them away. She doesn’t know what happens to Gaston’s body, but she helped dig Adam’s grave. There’s still dirt under her fingernails.

She remembers Mrs. Potts taking her in for a hug, the same way she comforted the sobbing Chip, and placing hot tea in her hands. She doesn’t remember going inside, though. That’s gone to madness.

“He left it to you,” Cogsworth repeats. His moustache is unkempt. “The castle, the title. The crown. The royal vaults. Us.”

“Don’t say that,” she protests, but he cuts her off.

“Us,” he says again. “We serve the crown. And now we shall serve you.”

“But I’m not royalty.” Her throat burns, like a tight lasso. “I’m just a girl.”

Cogsworth slowly kneels down in front of her, taking her hands into his. “Even at the beginning,” he says gravely, “you were never just a girl.”

She bows her head over their hands, slipping back into blissful silence.

#

She does the cleaning alone.

At first, the servants protested. _We live to serve,_ they kept telling her, bowing in a way that punches her in the stomach every time.

 _So serve me,_ she finally said. _Get out of my way._

It’s repetitive. It’s also exactly what she needs. She’s no royalty, but she’s been taking care of the household ever since she could walk. Scrubbing the floors and dusting the windows grounds her to reality, and lets her explore her new home in peace. Papa insists on moving in with her, but his comfort lies in the silence he allows her.

The castle is so much bigger than she thought. Rooms she had walked past on her way to the library led to other rooms, which led to other staircases and other hallways. Whenever the sun started to go down, all she had to do was wait for a few moments and one of the servants would pop up, escorting her down to the dinner table for a few mouthfuls of warm soup. Anything else hurt to eat.

She sees Mrs. Potts staring at her thin wrists, at the ribs in the outline of her dress, and then she goes to her bedroom in the East Wing and falls into dreamless sleep. When the sun rises, she does it all over again. The West Wing stays locked.

It’s Cogsworth that breaks the pattern. He marches her to one of the largest, still-unknown rooms, Lumiere silently wringing his hands behind them. It’s not quite the library, but it’s close enough to send panic down her spine.

“The classroom,” he announces. “This was where the Young Master took his lessons. History. Politics. Geography. Literature.”

“Shakespeare,” she murmurs. A fresh wave of pain crashes over her at the memory, and she struggles to stay upright.

“The materials are still here,” Cogsworth continues, drawing one of the heavy curtains to the side. It doesn’t cover a window, like she had suspected, but an enormous slate. Chalk lines of a language she does not know the name of are still written, probably a decade old. “You used to talk about that girl, in your tiny village. There are many more villages that come to pay respect.”

“You want me to open a school?” She peers closer at the slate. “A school for girls in the villages?”

“Whatever kind of school you like,” he says gruffly.

She is quiet, palm dusty with chalk. “Do you think I can do it?” she asks, but that’s not the real question she wants an answer to.

Lumiere finally speaks, voice still creaky from disuse. “Mademoiselle,” he says, “if anyone can do it, it’s you.”

She bites her lip hard enough for it to break. “Most of the villages are too far away to walk here,” she says instead. “We have enough rooms for—for them to stay here, don’t we?”

“A boarding school,” Cogsworth says.

“For boys and girls,” she continues.

“Will you charge them?”

Her first instinct is to shout no, to try and explain why that little girl in her little town had been so hesitant in the first place. But she is Princess now, not Belle, and she must think of how she can leave a legacy behind. “We’ll make different prices for them,” she finally says. “And for nobility. They can be charged more.”

“But they should not all live together,” Lumiere points out. He is not back to his cheery self yet, sorrow carved into his shoulders and eyes. This Lumiere is quiet and wise, but too quiet for liking. “They must be separated in some way.”

“We can—” her throat closes. She cannot make herself say it.

“It’s too early,” Lumiere hisses at Cogsworth.

“Madame,” Cogsworth says to her, “it does not have to happen now. It does not have to happen at all. We are here to help you, if not serve you. That means making you happy.”

She shakes her head, throat burning. All she wants is to run back to her cleaning, to lose herself in the circular motions of cleaning wood and stone and glass. She wants to find herself humming soft songs under her breath and reciting scraps of poetry.

Cogsworth is right. She’s going mad, even if she can’t accept it out loud. She needs something to feel useful again.

“Boys,” she chokes out. “Boys can stay in the West Wing.”

They walk the whole way there with only their footsteps talking to each other.

#

When she tells her father about it, Maurice starts building timetables and toys to teach counting and asking about invitations. More importantly, he sits her down and explains every step of how his old school functioned, back in Paris, how classes were divided up and what she could expect from teachers, and what students had as homework, or when they got grades, or even the dreaded school uniforms and songs. She wrote it all down and read it until the words were engraved in her mind.

Teachers. In every town a day’s horse ride away from the castle, there was a school for boys. Teachers who were well-versed in teaching all subjects, and not just one. Teachers who saw the castle as a place to live and eat and teach, with students of _a higher calibre,_ with a boss that would be _easy to convince._ Interviews are the most disgusting few weeks of her life.

“Spare the rod, beat the child,” the first one tells her.

“Children are lazy, you’ve got to put the fear of God in them—” says the second.

“Can I speak to your boss?” the third one asks. And then the seventh one asks the same thing.

She’s tired, so tired, but the school can’t move on until there’s a Head Teacher for the boys. The few men she has in service for the castle are happy with their positions, and she can’t ask them to give up their purpose in order to fulfil hers.

Deep down, she knows they’d do it. Anything for the girl who made them human, even if she wasn’t a real Princess. It’s why she never asked it of them. Mrs. Potts had someone lined up for the Head Teacher for girls, a cousin of hers that shared the same cheekbones and who treated Belle and Chip in the same way.

“How would you discipline a disruptive child?” she asks the twenty-second man who comes for the position. He’s young, younger than most of the people she’s been interviewing, and he’s dressed up awkwardly in a suit that’s too big for him in the shoulders and wrists. His hair is chopped short, unevenly, and all the more wild for it.

“Oh,” he says, voice deep. “I hadn’t thought about that. May I have some time to think it over?”

“You may,” she allows, and leans back. It’s a good sign—the rest had jumped in enthusiastically, talking about canes and rulers and, on one memorable occasion, grains of rice.

When he does speak, it’s with care and precision. “Although it might not be the answer you’re looking for—I think I would start by figuring out what caused the disruptive behaviour. Maybe I’d be able to set things right without intervening physically. I’d probably set up a rewards system, you know, to motivate them? If they fixed their fights like proper gentlemen, they would get rewarded for it. I don’t remember beatings helping me in school.”

“Not at all. I quite enjoyed your answer.” There’s hope fluttering in her chest. “A rewards system?”

“It’s how I kept my little brothers in check.” He shrugs. “If I saw them—talking things out, instead of fighting? Or helping others? They got hot milk at night. Maman used to grow herbs, so I’d play around with them, and I got pretty good at mixing things up. It only works when they’re younger, but by the time there were grown up, they knew what to avoid.”

He’s quiet. His voice is deep and his clothes are awful, and his hair looks like he chopped it off himself with a spoon. He still has acne all over his chin. But somehow, Belle knows this is it. This is the kind of person she wants her boys to look up to, words instead of weapons.

“Would you be opposed to moving into the castle?” she says instead, and takes great delight in watching him splutter.

“I have to take care of my brothers,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Umm—I want to support my family. So I have to stay with them.”

“They can attend classes if you can make them respect you outside of the family setting.”

He’s staring at her now, not in lust or surprise but in some strange form of assession. “And if I want to get married?” he asks. “Or—if I’m with someone?”

“Then they come with you. They can work here as well, if they like.”

“They,” he says. It’s almost a question.

“They,” she repeats. “Yes.”

He’s quiet for a few moments. A thinker. When Maurice sees him, the two men will talk until the early morning about what it’s like to have a brain that never stops moving. Maybe he’ll say his name, admit he never had a father. Admit he wants to be one more than he can say. “When can I start?”

#

 _I can’t,_ she whispers to herself, tucked in the corner of her massive room and wearing the clothes she had came to the castle in, so long ago. _I can’t do this. I can’t do this._

She gets no response. So she stands up, and she does it, whatever it is, because sometimes life is about doing what you can’t.

#

On the first day of school, she gives a speech. They end up doing the ceremony in the ballroom, hundreds of chairs in the vast space, boys on one side and girls on the other. All of them wear the same uniform, nothing noble and nothing simple—the same long coat in dark blue, white shirt and shirts and skirts underneath. For some students, these are the finest clothes they’ve ever worn. For others, it’s a reminder of who they might be sitting next to.

She wears a dark blue dress of her own. She talks about unity, and learning from the past to build upon the future. She talks about courage and the bravery of moving onwards. More than that, she talks about what they can do for each other, how to build up instead of break down. “The future of France is in your hands,” she says, and she can see they believe it.

When the speech is all said and done, and the students march out of the ballroom and into their first ever classes, and the teachers are waiting with slates and chalk, and Lumiere takes a tentative step towards her, Belle bursts out into tears.

“You were wonderful,” he says as she sobs into his chest. “You will raise France to a new era.”

“Will it be enough?” She buries her face in his coat. “Will it ever be enough?”

“It is already enough,” he answers. “Did you see their faces, mademoiselle? They know your name. They sing songs of you, and now they are being told that you believe in them enough to hand your castle and kingdom and riches on a silver platter. They are believed in.”

“I miss him,” she admits. “I wish—I wish he could see this.”

He says nothing, wound still deep, but he holds her in a way she should not allow until her tears have dried. Then, she walks down the hallway to the closest classroom, and listens to the alphabet being recited in the light of the sun.

#

It takes less than a month after the first official day of school for Belle to find herself at the library doors.

That month had been wonderful. She woke up with a purpose, did her rounds on all the teachers and sat at a different table of students each day. Even though the students always start out shy and respectful, even the boys, she has them laughing by the end of lunchtime.

“Are you unhappy?” she asks each one of them. “Can I make it better for you?”

“ _Non, Princesse,_ ” they chorus back, and this time, she is the one who believes in them.

But the month goes on. Teachers start catching her in hallways and before lunch, asking for more chalk and more paper and more texts. More than that, they ask for guidance and rules and schedules, and despite her many revisits with Papa, she cannot answer all of them.

Her palm is pressed against the door, but she makes no move to open them. The children need new books, and the teachers need new timelines, and she needs to be able to answer questions when she gets them. Some of the girls she kept a closer eye on, the ones she worried the most over, are already ahead in their classes and keep getting caught with books under the table.

The library can be a place for the students, she tells herself, and her palms stay still.

It’s just—

The library was one of the first places she closed, after Adam’s death. Part of it is because the first time she saw the Beast as Adam was when he cracked a joke, flat despite everything, _some are in Greek._ Some of the still-magical items are inside, but it’s mostly the books they used to read to each other, tiny romance novels with folded pages and intricate bookmarks. Adam hated bookmarks. She loved them.

Whenever they swapped books, a newly-woven bookmark would be nestled inside, unused.

She blinks away tears. _I can’t._ But the children need books, so she pushes against the doors until they creak open.

Inside the library, the curtains have been pulled tight. The room should have been dark, maybe even dusty, but Belle opens the doors to golden light. It hurts to look at, and before she knows it, she’s stepped back in horror.

It’s the Enchantress. Her face is twisted, halfway through guilt and almost at pity, but Belle’s eyes drop to her hands. The Book of Places is resting underneath them, on the table she and Adam once shared, and the sight fills Belle with rage.

“You came back,” she says instead, lowering her arms. Her eyes water, but she narrows them at the Enchantress. “Did you not want to announce yourself?”

“I had more things to do than pander to plans of new royalty,” the Enchantress answers, voice sharp. Belle cannot connect the words to Agathe, the widow she always tried to leave a coin for, if not a loaf of bread.

“If you wished to steal from me, I would have at least thought myself worthy of the respect that comes with being informed.” Royalty has their own way of speaking to each other, and this is what Belle emulates now, all curling words and smoke-filled gazes.

It doesn’t work. Or maybe it does. “Careful with your words, _Princesse_ ,” the Enchantress says slowly. The room around them becomes colder and darker, and Belle’s skin crawls all the way up to the ceiling. “You know what I am capable of doing. That gives you knowledge beyond many. Use it wisely.”

“Or what, you’ll turn me into a painting?” Belle’s temper has always gotten the better of her, tiny feet stomping and tongue curling. This time is no different. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”

“I am owed my due,” the Enchantress responds. “You would do well to remember that—”

“And you would do well to remember your actions are what put me in this position!” she shouts back, and oh, she’s shaking, isn’t she, ready to storm the castle and throw this woman off the tower like Gaston. “Everything you see happening now is because you thought the punishment suited the crime, and now it is your punishment in turn.”

“You dare—”

“I _dare,_ ” Belle interrupts savagely. “This is yours to deal with now. I have taken the items you tossed away in spite and fear and have given them to my students, who are more deserving of good and righteousness than any being on this planet, and I will not stand by and watch you take more away from my people.”

The Enchantress is staring at her, mouth open, and it feels _good_ to yell at someone again, it feels _good_ for there to be a person Belle knows is in the wrong. She cannot raise her voice at the children, and the servants are victims as much as anyone can possibly be. But before Belle was a Princess, she was a village girl, and before that she was her father’s daughter, and somebody had to stand up for what was right.

“So don’t _you_ dare,” she finishes savagely, locking her jaw. “Don’t you dare stand there and say I haven’t earned a single thing I now own, because you good as gave them away. Blame yourself if you want an excuse and leave me out of your mess.”

Her breathing comes out in sharp gasps. It takes her a moment to reel herself back into her body, counting the tiles on the floor. Two. Four. Eight.

“I think you should go,” she says, locking her hands together in front of her stomach. Sixteen. “You’ve done enough.”

Her hands in plain sight—a message. The second message Belle sends is in the way she turns, sharply on her heel, to leave the room. Her exposed back to the Enchantress— _hit me if you dare,_ perhaps. Or maybe, _I trust you to be civil._

“Wait,” the Enchantress calls. “Princess, wait.”

Belle turns her head over her shoulder. The Enchantress hasn’t moved, staring at Belle with an intimidating focus.

“Be not afraid,” the Enchantress says, and explodes into light.

And it’s grace, it’s music, it’s art, it’s dance, it’s the walls moving, it’s the books singing, it’s the sun shaking, it’s Belle’s voice weeping, it’s Adam next to her, it’s—

The Enchantress pulls all the light sharply inwards, reforming her body in a manner of seconds, tightening it and smoothening it into a firm globe hovering in her palm. Belle lets out a shaky breath at the show of power. _Magic._

“Would you like to learn?” the Enchantress asks.

#

It takes Belle a week just to sense the magic in the air around her. The Enchantress keeps saying how it’ll be easiest in the castle, due to how long her curse lasted, but even reaching out mentally to touch a tendril leaves Belle shaking and gasping.

“You’re doing well,” the Enchantress insists. They’re in the library, and the Enchantress is hovering mid-air over the table as she hands Belle a cup of cold tea.

Belle can’t find it in her to care about the cold. “Was it this hard for you?” she asks instead, wiping the back of her forehead and taking a large gulp. She’s supposed to be a teacher. Her pupils are counting on her to explain letters and numbers and how cogs fit together, not to hear her fail at the most basic of magic.

“Not quite,” the Enchantress said. “I knew how to feel the magic almost immediately. It was natural for me.”

“Great,” Belle mutters.

“The hard part came in using it,” the Enchantress continues. “I could feel it, but I couldn’t make it listen to me. My early spells had a tendency to go awry.” The corner of mouth quirks up in a half-smile. “I had to levitate a rock. It caught on fire.”

“How does a rock catch on fire?” Belle wonders out loud. “How did you put it out?”

“I didn’t.” The smile grows larger. “I think it’s a volcano now.”

Belle laughs despite her aching muscles and the headache pounding behind her eyes, passing the cup back. “Let me try again,” she says.

“You’re overworking yourself.”

“One more time,” she insists. “And then I’ll take a break.”

The Enchantress rolls her eyes at the now-familiar phrase, but waves a hand for her to go ahead anyway. Belle takes another deep breath, adjusting her stance.

Magic isn’t detachment. It was the first thing the Enchantress drilled into her, over and over again. It’s being so in tune with the world that you start to tap into it. Trying to focus makes things worse—you have to fall into your natural rhythm.

Belle takes a few hesitant steps around her. “This isn’t right,” she mumbles.

“Hmm?”

“This isn’t right,” she says again, flushing red. “That sounds crazy, but—something isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.”

“On the contrary.” The Enchantress’ eyes burn into hers. “Magic is intuitive. Follow your instincts.”

Belle nods, closing her eyes. The library around her is too big, too loud. Her own breaths vibrate around her, rough and ragged.

She steps back once, and then again, until her back hits the wall. With her fingertips, she traces the mortar between the marble slabs. Adam once showed her—

Her heart skips a beat.

Adam once showed her a hidden passageway, in this library. He had no idea how it worked, but he had shown her anyway. They had taken it down to the kitchen and burst in mid-dinner preparations, roaring with laughter. He could barely fit and she couldn’t see a thing and they tripped over the uneven stairs more times they could count. It was the first time he had taken her hand into his, rough paw pads resting against her palm. That night, she spent ages just pressing her hands together, trying to recreate the feeling.

Lines. Patterns. Clockwork was more circles than mechanics, or maybe it was both. Her fingers brushed over a crack. The library and the kitchen were connected in seventeen different ways, but all of them started and ended in the same point. They just folded the space between the two, hadn’t they? Made it smaller. Found a connection. She had loved him so much.

Belle presses her palms against the wall and pushes, the lightest touch and the most delicate thought _,_ and the castle _sings._

#

Sometimes, she wakes up screaming.

She refuses to leave her room in the East Wing, but the echoes are terrible. She wakes up to her own voice, sweat-heavy brow, tears on her cheeks. _No, please, not him._ Her sheets twist around her, knots in her stomach as well as on her bed, and she flings them off in cold desperation.

Sometimes, she soothes herself enough to go back to a light, fitful sleep. Sometimes.

On this night, she wakes up with bitten-through lips and a sheet twined around her neck. Her nails scratch at her skin, red welts popping up. The pain is nothing compared to the storm in her head.

On this night, she manages to take a hand out and press it against the wall above her, _help me,_ and the castle sings back to her about roses and stairwells and falling apart. Or maybe it sings about being put back together.

She falls asleep on this night and wakes up with her fingers halfway melted into the wall. Her fingerprints leave indistinct whirlpools in the damp stone.

#

“I fail to see the purpose of this,” the Enchantress mutters, wooden spoon in her hand. She holds it like a want, fingers clenched at the base of the handle, flinging sauce over the walls.

“Teach a man to fish,” Belle says absently. It was one of the sentences she had read recently in a new book. Her brain neatly circumnavigates the fact that she hasn’t read a new book since Adam died, because, well. She just has. She can give herself this small achievement.

“Lure the fish in with sirens,” the Enchantress mutters. Belle flicks her on the shoulder.

“You’re teaching me magic,” Belle insists. “You said so yourself, you have to be in tune with the world around you.”

“I am,” the Enchantress says.

“But you can be in tune with something and lose yourself to it.” Belle takes another potato. The knife peels the skin off, almost by itself, razor-sharp. “I’ve only been—been Princess for a few months. I’m already forgetting the struggles my people have to go through, every day.”

“Is that why you cleaned the castle by yourself, back in the beginning?”

Belle pauses. They never mentioned the time _before_ each other, but the Enchantress could have talked to others in the kingdom. It was no small story, her rise to power and her immediate changes with it. She knew her name was whispered in common houses— _Belle, so beautiful, clever as she is curious, tongue as sharp as faerie steel._ The fact she cleaned floorboards for the first month meant nothing to her, but meant something to the little girls just learning about it.

“Yes,” she finally says. “I needed to do something familiar, but I also needed to recognize where I was.”

The Enchantress cocks her head. “I was taught detachment led to freedom.”

“That’s what you call it?” Belle lets out a little laugh. “It didn’t work for me.”

“I see.” The Enchantress gives the sauce a stir. “I suppose I can no longer call myself… detached.”

“Oh?”

She nods. “After all, I keep coming back here.”

Belle cuts herself on the potato knife.

The next few minutes are a whirlwind of _no_ and _I’m fine_ and _I don’t need a healing spell, this happens to everyone_ and _just because you can doesn’t mean you should._ It still takes a while for Belle to lean into the Enchantress and murmur, “I like you coming back.”

The Enchantress says nothing, but takes Belle’s hands in hers. A whirl of golden light, and unblemished skin is left behind. Belle makes no move to pull her hand away.

#

Some nights, when she wakes up gasping, she goes to work instead. There are always papers that need grading, even as she finds herself staying in the classrooms less and less. The few hours she gets to listen to sweet voices reciting Latin, she spends in a trance, time slipping through her fingertips like rose petals. But now, the sun is not yet up, and sweet voices are sleeping, and there are spelling exams to grade.

“You’re up early.”

Belle looks up to see Mrs. Potts, still in a nightgown, tea tray in her hands. “Or maybe I’m up late,” she responds wryly. “Who’s to know the difference?”

“Neither are recommended, poppet.” The tea tray is set down on the only corner of the table still uncovered. “Have you been sleeping all right?”

Belle laughs. “Have I been sleeping at all?” Reaching out to pluck the teacup, perfectly brewed and still warm, she adds, “Don’t worry about me. I can handle it.”

“Of course you can,” Mrs. Potts says. “You wouldn’t have opened the school if you couldn’t handle it. It was a very brave thing to do.”

“You said that before,” Belle says. The tea is new, spicy in the back of her throat in a not-unpleasant way. She takes her tea without sugar these days.

“And I meant it before.” A hand cards through Belle’s loose hair, and she leans into the soft touch, eyes fluttering. “But it’s not a question of what you can take, but what you should.”

“I know that,” Belle murmurs defensively. It doesn’t have the same bite to it when she’s effectively being petted.

“Do you know what I do here?”

“Other than make perfect tea?”

“You really are a wonder.” Mrs. Potts laughs along with her, voice soft in the grey night. “I delegate, dear. The dishes must be clean, the food must be ordered, the rooms must be prepared. If I try to do it all myself, other things will slip through the cracks.”

“You’re telling me to give up some of my responsibilities.” Belle finally feels the late hours on her body, eyes heavy and stomach plummeting.

“I still make tea,” Mrs. Potts says. “I’m telling you to do what only you can do. Spelling can be checked by the teachers.”

“But I’m supposed to be a teacher,” Belle protests, and there it is. Because she never opened this school for herself, but it’s her school, and it all started from Cogsworth remembering a story of a little girl who sounded out words over laundry. Belle thought she would be here to teach, and not to delegate. She wants to be a part of what she created.

“You are a teacher.” Mrs. Potts’ voice is firm. “But your subject is not language, or math, or geography. It is not to cook or clean. You teach by example of what a Princess must be—part of the people. Part of the world, not separate of it.”

Belle stares at the sheets in front of her. She can’t help but think back to all the times the teachers stared at her, in the back of classrooms, fear in their eyes instead of wonder. “Alright,” she whispers. “Alright.”

Mrs. Potts leans over and presses a gentle kiss to Belle’s head. She closes her eyes and imagines, for a second, that she never left Paris as a baby in the dead of night.

#

Belle’s magic grows in leaps and bounds. One day, she’s glaring at a book hard enough for it to explode, willing it to jump into the air with nothing but sheer force of self. The next, she’s waving her hand at the top shelves in the library and the books rearrange themselves alphabetically.

“Are all humans like you?” the Enchantress says, floating just behind Belle. “So stubborn.”

“Stubborn is a good word for it,” Belle agrees. “But we don’t agree on what to be stubborn on, I’m afraid.”

“You should be exhausted,” the Enchantress insists. “Magic isn’t an unlimited well to draw upon, it’s something you build up inside yourself. You’re using too much to be feeling well.”

“But you told me we were just the connector.”

“Your body is the connector,” the Enchantress says. “It is the bridge between your world and the world of magic and energy. A bridge will snap under too much weight, and you’ve been putting the weight of stone towers on thin branches.”

Belle stops moving, arm outstretched. “Stone towers?”

“A simple metaphor.”

“Or maybe not,” Belle breathes out. Her fingerprints flicker above her head at night, a mobile of lines and circles and clockwork. “I think—I don’t think I’m the bridge.”

“What do you mean?”

Wordlessly, Belle gestures around them. The Enchantress takes a moment or two to understand it, but then she looks at the room around them and the ceiling above them and her mouth falls open.

“I even said it would be easier for you here,” the Enchantress whispers. “The castle? You put all the weight on the castle?”

“Is it dangerous?” Belle asks, and braces herself. Because if it is, she’s ready to never use magic again. Classes have been going wonderfully, even without her there in the rooms. On early mornings, she’ll stay in bed with a cup of tea and listen to the footsteps racing past her door. Sometimes the students will forget to close the dorm windows and their peals of laughter will reach Belle.

The other day, a group of new girls had gone and picked some of the roses growing in her little alcove and brought them to her, in a hand-made pot of clay they had dug themselves and painted in an art class. She had wanted to kiss their cheeks so badly, hold them close, thank them for being so unafraid of her and so sure in her pride in them.

So she braces herself, because hand-picked roses are more important than her pride in herself.

“I would not say so,” the Enchantress says instead, and Belle lets out a breath of relief—because being willing to do something and wanting to do something are two very different things. “But time is strange here, and magic is not without consequence. It could happen in the future. It might have happened already.”

“Does magic change time?” Belle seats herself on the floor, brows raised.

“Certainly.” And while the Sorceress does not sit, she hovers lower. Belle’s smile widens. “Time is the first thing affected. Sometimes, all magic does is slow down or speed up. Love spells, for example.”

“Those exist?” her stomach drops. “You can—make people feel things?”

“No. Fabrications in the mind are impossible.” In the Enchantress’ upturned palm, gold starts to rise. “We can intensify. We can quicken or slow down. If you have the possibility to love someone, a love spell will make you reach that point quicker. It can also make you reach the end point quicker. That is just one example of how we use time to change the natural world.”

“Teleportation is the same? You just… make time slower?”

“Slower for others, quicker for you.” The gold is crushed down beneath the skin, and the fist shuts. “It takes some… time, I suppose, to get the trick of it down. It’s how the Book of Places works.”

Belle’s eyes shift to the cloth-covered book, the thing that had started their strange and rocky friendship of spells and secrets. Her chest throbs, but she can breathe through the pain this time. “Can you tell me more?”

The Enchantress hesitates, dark eyes scanning Belle’s face. “Time is sped for you,” she finally says. “And slowed for the world. If you speed something enough, it vanishes. We don’t know how or why, but when you travel in that book, you essentially go so quickly you vanish to the human eye. You punch a hole through this universe and go to the next. Alternate worlds.”

“But we went to Paris,” Belle protests. “It was—it was just Paris.”

“And it was empty,” the Enchantress says. “An alternate timeline in which people disappeared. There’s an alternate timeline for every choice you’ve ever made. In one of those worlds, you went to London instead or Paris. Or you chose not to go. Or you never got to see the Book of Places at all. Infinite worlds of possibility.”

Belle’s head is spinning. She might be a Princess and a budding magician, but she still came from a little town. “Oh,” is all she says, weakly.

“Too much?”

“A little bit.” Her laugh is soft and breathless. “I’m trying to keep up. So the Book—it takes you to one of those worlds?”

“It takes you to any world,” the Enchantress says. “It depends on your wish. Belle, this magic is dangerous beyond measure. It was my cruellest gift, and I regret it every day. Do you understand?”

In some ways, Belle does. She understands that the Enchantress doesn’t mean this as a lecture, but a warning. She understands this is almost certainly a test.

“I understand,” she says, and makes plans to sneak into the library through the kitchens that night.

#

Getting to the book is easy. Figuring out why she wants to use it so desperately is the hard part.

She remembers Adam telling her to think of the place she wanted to see most, to see it in her mind’s eye. This time, she thinks of herself—of the million different versions of her life, of all the regrets she has and the changes she wants to make.

Falling into the book is as easy as falling in love.

_In one universe, it is her father who falls sick with plague, in the tower outside of Paris. Belle still leaves as a baby, kicking and screaming, but it is with a mother instead._

_Belle knows nothing but love in her life, and her mother is just as flighty and different as Belle is. Together they sing Parisian songs and burn the vegetables, but Belle also learns a kind of grace in being different. She watches her mother bargain at the markets, wash clothes by hand, write frantic chapters in the dead of the night by flickering candlelight and a rose pen she never loses._

_When Gaston comes in this universe, Belle knows what to say in order to make him lose interest. When her mother takes walks in the forest, she knows how to retrace her steps. And when the Beast roars at the both of them, Belle knows how to roar back from the start._

_No, not that one. In one universe, Maurice speaks better than he tinkers. He could have been a politician if they had stayed in Paris, but he loved his craft too much to whisper honey into already-golden ears. So when Belle finds him locked in the tower, he tells Belle to go. He uses her words against her, hating himself for every moment, but he does the same to the Beast. When Belle leaves, it is with the promise of visits._

_Belle comes back with warm clothes and loose papers. The Beast allows the first, but takes the second, peering at schematics through vicious claws. Then, before she leaves for the second time, he takes her down into the washing rooms and asks about assembly. Within the week, Maurice is allowed out of his cell, although he cannot leave the castle. Also within the week, Belle has fixed half the castle. Within the second week, the Beast starts to hope she can fix him as well._

_No, not that one either. In one universe, the Beast does not come for her, after she sneaks into the West Wing and touches the rose. The night is cold, and the wolves’ teeth are sharp, and she is so very alone._

__

__

_The castle mourns the girl that once was, and when the last rose petal falls, no one remembers her name._

_No, but let’s try again. In one universe, in one timeline or the next, she has no choice. Her house has antlers instead of painted flowers on the walls, and her dress pockets are filled with coin instead of books._

__

__

_She wakes up at dawn. Every day is like the one before, with her making breakfast, going to the market, making lunch, cleaning, making dinner, and then Gaston is around her, leering with dark eyes and the anticipation of the hunt. She does not look anyone in the eye. When she has her first daughter, she secretly teaches her how to read._

_One more try. In one universe, golden light surrounds Adam, lifting him into the air and shooting out of his feet and palms. His hair is shoulder-length and light, and his eyes lock onto Belle’s—_

Belle is pulled out of the book, shaking and gasping, to the stormy face of the Enchantress.

#

“You could have saved him!” Belle’s voice cracks.

“I could not,” the Enchantress snarls. Her voice is as dark as tar, fury in her eyes. “I did only what I could do.”

“I saw it!”

“You saw another universe, one of which you can never have. If I had known that book would have driven you to madness, I would have stolen it that very day!”

“But you could have tried!”

“Do you think I haven’t?” the Enchantress shouts back. Her hair falls around her face in a golden cascade, light shimmering just under the skin. “I could have left the day Adam died, I could have taken my gifts without you ever discovering them. I could have wiped your memories and sent you back home!”

“How dare you!” Her teeth are grinding against each other and sparks of magic are running through her, sparking her breaths, lighting each heavy word in rosewood-scented smoke. “To take away more from me!”

“It was never yours,” the Enchantress snarls. “All you have has been lent to you, not given!”

“I have memories that say otherwise, but I suppose that wouldn’t have been a problem to someone like you?”

“I have done my best!” She steps forward, hair flying around her, feet never touching the ground. “I gave you everything I could!”

“Gave or lent? Will you strip my magic out of my blood?”

“You think me capable of such a filthy act?”

“Why not? What’s your reason behind this all? Why should you not strike me where I stand?”

“Because I want you to be happy with me!”

Belle’s jaw snaps shut. The Enchantress’ face turns a pale white. She steps away silently, not looking at Belle once before a sharp hand gesture makes all the light in the room collide—

And Belle is alone in a dark library, head spinning.

#

“Where is your friend?” her Papa asks her, walking together in the gardens. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”

He always says it like that, _your friend,_ and it gives Belle a new edge of panic. “Busy,” she answers, kneeling down to check one of the flower bushes. “And she doesn’t come around that often, Papa.”

“No? Does she not have her own room in the East Wing?”

“A formality,” Belle murmurs, brushing a hand over a branch as if to check for buds. Her cheeks burn. “I want everyone to feel welcome here.”

“And she has made you an enchantress in your own right,” he continues, and Belle’s chest tightens.

“I tinker,” she corrects. “It isn’t official. I’m never going to be as strong as her.”

“I never said that,” Papa says. “It would be a folly to compare you to anyone, my Belle, when you know how unique you are.”

Belle hates herself for the tears that spring into her eyes. “Don’t call me that,” she chokes out. “Unique. I don’t want to be unique in this—I don’t want to be—”

She rubs at her eyes with her wrists. All she wants is her Papa to laugh the tears away, but it doesn’t work anymore. She’s far too grown up for that, even if she doesn’t feel it and still looks at other girls out of the corner of her eyes. Adam was the first to draw her attention, and it took them wolves and a cursed book to bring them together.

Falling for the Enchantress was like touching magic for the first time.

Gentle fingers pry her hands away from her face, and she looks up with tear-streaked cheeks to her Papa’s stern face. “Unique,” he says again. “You act as a light to those students, Belle. You are everything they want to become. The future is bright because of people like you, and no matter how powerful the Enchantress is, she is not powerful enough to ruin your reputation.”

“But to you—”

“To me,” he says gently, wiping a fresh tear away, “you are my daughter.”

She stares at the ground in between them. “I think she’s avoiding me,” Belle admits softly. “It—hurts.”

He bends his head and kisses her hand, wrapping his palms around it. “Then she is a fool,” he says. “If she is worthy of you, she will come back, and I will shout at her. Enchantress or not.”

Belle’s laugher comes through a new wave of tears, but that’s alright, because she’s falling into his arms and Papa is holding her close and rubbing her back and it hurts, but it’s a good kind of hurt. It’s a little bit like letting go.

#

 _Would you hurt me?_ she asks the castle, late that night. _Would you tear me apart?_

 _You are mine,_ it sings back. _My little village girl, bound to me through blood and bonds as old as time. You are the one thing I have to keep._

#

Belle throws herself back into her work. It takes a few days for her brain to get back to normal, but then a group of rowdy pupils, boys and girls alike, try to sneak out of classes to play in the gardens. Part of her loves them for it, nobility and peasantry playing together happily, but not at the sake of mathematics.

It’s mid-scolding, words only and her hands firmly behind her back, that the idea comes to her.

She’s up at sunrise. After two or three tries, she gets the hang of snatching beams of light out of the air, weaving them around the castle. The next pupils that try to sneak out get the shock of their life, both in pinching sunrays and in Belle appearing in front of them out of thin air.

She sends them back to class and sings the entire way down to the kitchens.

#

When the Enchantress comes again, Belle opens the door before the knock.

“Ah,” the Enchantress says, taken aback. In her hands, she carries a bouquet of a dozen white roses. “You heard me?”

“A simple alarm charm,” Belle corrects, waving a careless hand towards one the corner where she had strung up sunrays. Any movement through them sent a buzz in her head, knocking thoughts around like flies. It’s easy to flit between them now, sending her from tower tops to the front doors in less than a second. It’s almost like flying. “Quite effective.”

“Simple?” The Enchantress shakes her head, laughing. “You are smarter and quicker than I ever thought.”

“I am my father’s daughter,” she responds, leaning against the door. “You would know. Are those for me?” She meant it teasingly, maybe even self-indulgently, but then the Enchantress flushes red, red unlike the roses she holds, and Belle’s brain trips down the stairs and shouts _oh,_ shouts _can I_ and _yes_ and _please._

“They’re just roses,” the Enchantress finally mutters, holding them out like the peace treaty they were. Belle’s smile is alien as it stretches across her face.

“Beautiful,” she says softly, bringing them to her chest. The sunrays catch the light and fling it across the room in dappled shadow. Underneath them, light voices read out the sentences she had chalked across the new slates on the walls, early that same morning.

Time speeds up. In a few weeks, she’ll have to attend her first meeting of nobility. She will wear a yellow dress, tinted in gold, hair pulled up and dark shadows around her eyes. Many will bow to her gloved hands, either due to the thin crown on her head or to the floating shadow behind her. Many more will bow due to the stories their children bring them, of a headmistress and a princess who keeps lopsided clay vases in her bedroom and fills them with flowers. She will toss her head back and laugh, and the rooms will fill with light and wonder and song.

No, wait. Time slows down. Plumette is teaching dance in the ballroom, with the Maestro and Madame Garderobe trilling along in perfect tempo. Chip is probably in one of the classes with the other pupils, thrilled to learn their songs and play their games. Papa has a specialist class on art and clockwork, orders extending out for years to come and apprentices coming from Paris in hopes of a quick glance. Lumiere’s laughter rings out over the grounds, followed by Cogsworth’s well-mannered grumbles, the smell of cake in the wind from the bustling kitchens, all of them alive, so alive, so happy to be alive.

In front of her, the Enchantress lifted her hand and cupped Belle’s cheek. “Yes,” she says. “You are.”

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